Course Subsections#

What Is a Subsection?#

Subsections are divided into subsections, which in turn contain one or more units. A subsection may represent a topic in your course, or another organizing principle. Subsections are sometimes called “lessons” or they might represent a week’s worth of material.

Subsections and Visibility to Learners#

You can set subsections to release at the same time as the containing section, or after.

You can hide a subsection so that the subsection and its units are not visible to learners at all in the course navigation, or you can hide the contents of a subsection after the subsection due date has passed.

Learners can only see content in a subsection when the subsection’s release date has passed and each of the following conditions is met:

  • The release date for the subsection that contains that content has passed.

  • The unit has been published.

  • The unit is not hidden from learners.

Release Statuses of Subsections#

For the content of a subsection to be visible to learners, the subsection must be released. See the following topics for more information about the possible release statuses of subsections.

Unscheduled status

If the parent section is unscheduled, when you create a new subsection it will also be unscheduled.

Regardless of the publishing status of units within the subsection, no content in an unscheduled subsection is visible to learners.

When a subsection is unscheduled, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical gray bar next to the subsection’s name.

For instructor-led courses, content in the subsection is not visible to learners until you set a release date and the date passes.

For self-paced courses, content is released when the course starts.

Scheduled Later than the Section status

For instructor-led courses, you can set a subsection to release on a date after the section releases.

Content in a subsection that is scheduled for release on a future date is not visible to learners, even if some or all of the units in the subsection are published.

Even if the subsection is scheduled to release later than the section, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical green bar next to the subsection’s display name.

The scheduled date must pass for the subsection to be visible to learners.

Scheduled with Unpublished Changes status

You can make changes to a published unit before its parent subsection is released.

In this situation, when the release date for the subsection passes, the last published version of units within the subsection are made visible to learners. The changes in units are not visible to learners until you publish them.

When a subsection is scheduled but has unpublished changes, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical yellow bar next to the subsection’s display name. When you expand the subsection, the unit that has unpublished changes is visible.

Released with Unpublished Changes status

If you modify a unit within a released subsection, those modifications are not visible to students until you publish them.

When a subsection is scheduled but has unpublished changes, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical yellow bar next to the subsection’s display name. When you expand the subsection, the unit that has unpublished changes is visible.

Released status

A subsection that is released is visible to learners; however, learners see only units within the subsection that are published.

When a subsection is released, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical blue bar next to the subsection’s display name.

Staff Only Content

A subsection can contain a unit that is hidden from learners and available to members of the course team only. That unit is not visible to learners, even if the subsection has been released.

When a subsection contains a unit that has staff-only content, the subsection is visible in the outline with a vertical black bar next to the subsection’s display name.

Graded Subsections#

Grading in your course is based on subsections. When you have configured grading, you then associate assignment types with subsections

When you set the assignment type for a subsection, all problems in the subsection are graded and weighted as a single type. For example, if you designate the assignment type for a subsection as Homework, then all problem types in that subsection are graded as homework.

Therefore you should design you course so as not to mix assignment types in one subsection. For example, you cannot have graded homework and a quiz in the same subsection.

Problem Results Visibility#

By default, when learners submit answers to problems, they immediately receive the results of the problem: whether they answered the problem correctly, as well as their scores. However, you might want to temporarily hide problem results from learners when you run an exam, or permanently hide results when you administer a survey. You can do this by using the Assessment Results Visibility setting, in the subsection’s Settings dialog box.